Business As Unusual | Leadership & Growth Livestream

September 17, 2026
at Noon CT

Culture That Scales:
How a Growing Distributor Is
Developing Its Workforce for the Future

A real-world look at how Gresco is strengthening employee connection and building a stronger foundation for onboarding, knowledge transfer, and succession.

Business growth can change the employee experience. What worked when the company was smaller may not work as well across more locations, employees, and layers of leadership. That is why culture, communication, onboarding, and succession should be considered important business priorities.

Gresco is a 200+ employee utility and electrical supply distributor serving co-ops, investor-owned utilities, municipalities, and contractors across the Southeast. With employees across multiple locations, the company has been working to better understand what people value, where the employee experience could be more consistent, and what needs to be in place for the next stage of growth.

In this Business as “Un”usual session, Red Caffeine CEO Kathy Steele is joined by Gunnar Fletcher and Katie Bjorkman of Gresco, along with Red Caffeine Account Director Christiana Henry, for a conversation about what it takes to strengthen culture as a company grows.

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What to Expect:

As Gresco grew, leadership recognized that the employee experience could not rely solely on long-tenured people to carry the culture informally. The company needed a more intentional way to keep people connected, make communication more consistent, support onboarding, protect institutional knowledge, and prepare future leaders.

This session explores how Gresco listened to employees through surveys, one-on-one conversations, focus groups, and location visits. You’ll also hear about the importance of sharing progress updates through internal communication channels, particularly when the work to address employee feedback is foundational and not immediately visible to everyone.

If your organization is growing, adding locations, navigating leadership change, or trying to create a more consistent employee experience, this session will give you a practical look at what it takes to protect a strong culture while preparing for what comes next.

Session Highlights:

Recognize when growth begins to outpace informal people practices
Understand why listening is only the beginning of an effective talent strategy
Explore how ongoing internal communication builds trust while foundational work happens behind the scenes

Register now to learn how growing companies can protect what makes their culture strong while building what they need for the future.

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Meet the Guest Speakers & Host

Guest

Christiana Henry
Account Director
Red Caffeine

Christiana is an Account Director and strategic consultant at Red Caffeine, where she builds collaborative client relationships and develops multichannel strategies that support long-term business…

Christiana is an Account Director and strategic consultant at Red Caffeine, where she builds collaborative client relationships and develops multichannel strategies that support long-term business growth. With more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing, strategic consulting, and client services, Christiana helps clients translate business challenges into focused strategies and coordinated action. Her relationship-driven approach, attention to detail, and outside perspective allow her to challenge established thinking while keeping teams aligned around the larger business objective.

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Guest

Gunnar Fletcher
District Manager
Gresco

Gunnar brings a district leadership perspective to Gresco’s ongoing talent strategy and employee experience work. Involved from the beginning of the initiative, Gunnar has helped…

Gunnar brings a district leadership perspective to Gresco’s ongoing talent strategy and employee experience work. Involved from the beginning of the initiative, Gunnar has helped represent the needs of employees across locations while supporting Gresco’s efforts to strengthen communication, preserve culture, and create a more consistent employee experience as the business grows. Through his work with Gresco’s Employee Experience Team, Gunnar has helped champion a listening-first approach that includes employee surveys, one-on-one conversations, focus groups, and location-level input. His perspective reflects the importance of ensuring employees across the organization feel heard, valued, and connected to the company’s future.

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Guest

Katie Bjorkman
Marketing & Communications Manager
Gresco

Katie brings nearly a decade of experience with Gresco across marketing, communications, events, and brand management. She is passionate about creating meaningful experiences and fostering…

Katie brings nearly a decade of experience with Gresco across marketing, communications, events, and brand management. She is passionate about creating meaningful experiences and fostering connections that support employees, customers, and the communities Gresco serves. As part of Gresco’s talent strategy work, Katie brings the internal communications lens—helping ensure employees understand what is happening, why it matters, and how the work connects to the broader employee experience.

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Host

Kathy Steele
Chief Executive Officer
Red Caffeine

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant,…

Kathy Steele is a visionary leader and entrepreneur with over thirty years of corporate strategy, branding, marketing, and technology expertise. As an operating executive, consultant, founder, and board member, she advises executives on innovative growth, brand, and talent management strategies that drive shareholder value while protecting reputational risk and improving customer and employee engagement. Currently, Kathy is the CEO of Red Caffeine, a growth consultancy that builds Grow-to-Market™ strategies for mid-market companies in the manufacturing, technology, professional services, and education sectors with combined revenues exceeding 4 billion. She has advised executives on developing and promoting first-mover technologies, positioning and launching new products and services, changing brand perception to aid business turnaround, and helping organizations with their human capital strategies. Kathy has successfully guided the management of a crafting product from idea to acquisition by the largest strategic player in the space, a technology product launch campaign that led to 80% revenue growth, more than doubling their business, and an award-winning repositioning strategy that reached a global audience, changed negative market perception, and drove new customer acquisition.

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Catch up on Past Livestreams

We do our best to build each Business as “Un”usual livestream event around evergreen topics, so you can find valuable insights from our entire library of content.

View All Livestreams

Is Your Growth Strategy Built for the Business You’re Becoming?

Business as “Un”usual • August 17, 2026

Amy Anderson, Christiana Henry, Callie Sierra, Kathy Steele

Growing businesses rarely stand still. Markets shift. Customer expectations evolve. New opportunities emerge. Yet many organizations continue operating with the same positioning, processes, and go-to-market strategy that helped them succeed years earlier. Eventually, there's a gap between the business you've become and the way your business is perceived—internally, externally, or both. That's when growth becomes about much more than marketing. In this Business as "Un"usual conversation, Kathy Steele is joined by Red Caffeine Growth Consultants Amy Anderson, Christiana Henry, and Callie Sierra to discuss what happens when companies outgrow their current strategy, and how leaders can prepare their organizations for what's next.

Watch the Replay

The Sales Communication Gap: How to Connect with the Person Behind the Purchase

Business as “Un”usual • July 10, 2026

Tom Latourette, Kathy Steele

Most sales teams prepare for the company, the opportunity, and the business problem. But better sales conversations require another layer of preparation: understanding the person across the table.

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Building an AI-Ready Business: How to Move Beyond Productivity Hacks

Business as “Un”usual • June 18, 2026

Justin True, Kathy Steele

While experimenting with AI tools can improve productivity, the companies creating real competitive advantage are the ones embedding AI into workflows, operations, and decision-making across the business.

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The Future of Revenue Generation: Secure AI Built for Your Business

Business as “Un”usual • May 21, 2026

Michael Reynolds, Kathy Steele

Most companies are buying AI tools, but not getting the results they need. While AI tools can speed up tasks and generate more output, they rarely create the consistency, scalability, or meaningful growth organizations are actually looking for.

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AI-Enabled Use Cases for Sales & Marketing Teams

Business as “Un”usual • April 16, 2026

Bill Skowronski, Dayna Kramer, Kathy Steele

AI is already part of your team, but how well is it actually working for you? Most sales and marketing teams are using AI to move faster, but without a clear strategy behind it, those efforts often lead to more activity, not necessarily better outcomes

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Could This Exit Have Been Saved? A Live Case Study in Reversing a Company’s Exit Outcome

Business as “Un”usual • March 19, 2026

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What separates businesses that preserve value from those that quietly lose it? The truth is, most failed exits happen because small decisions are delayed, avoided, or made without understanding how they compound over time.

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Business as “Un”usual • February 19, 2026

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Most mid-market leaders are focused on growth, but not all growth creates value. In fact, many companies unknowingly cap their valuation by growing in ways that add complexity, risk, or owner dependency instead of long-term strength.

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Are You Underfunding Your Future? Rethinking GTM Budgets for Growth, Visibility & Competitive Advantage

Business as “Un”usual • January 22, 2026

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Mid-market leaders face rising costs, shifting buyer behavior, and growing pressure to do more with less, yet most still budget by tweaking last year’s numbers. That outdated approach no longer matches what it takes to drive demand, win attention, and stay competitive.

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As wages rise and customers push back on higher prices, business leaders are stuck between supporting their people and protecting their margins.

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Financials and operations often dominate the M&A spotlight, but your brand is where real alignment (or misalignment) happens. When done well, your brand becomes the bridge that unites your cultures, your stories, and your people.

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As a fourth-generation, family-owned manufacturer, Rome knew they needed to evolve to stay competitive. But instead of following industry norms, they rewrote the rules, revamping their brand, reshaping their culture, and building a growth strategy that they own.

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